Cantor wants GOP focus on spending

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Republican Whip Eric Cantor says Americans are so concerned about the size of government that 'the tolerance for pain [from cuts] is much greater than it has been.'
Reuters

Republican officials believe they have a good — but not certain — chance of gaining the 40 seats needed to take over the House. Cantor sometimes says “when” the GOP wins the majority, and at other times says “if.”

Cantor said spending and jobs will be dominant themes in a reincarnation of the party’s 1994 “contract with America” — what he calls a “list of deliverables” that House Republicans plan to begin using in their campaigns on Labor Day, or shortly thereafter.

Other likely topics include terrorism and what the GOP would do about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Social issues could include opposition to abortion.

Cantor rose swiftly in the Republican ranks partly because he was a tireless and smooth fundraiser who was willing to spend weekends traveling the country and is comfortable with all kinds of movers and shakers. He speaks in the Southern lilt of his native Richmond but wears Gucci loafers and married a Goldman Sachs vice president.

As part of showing he “gets it,” Cantor has long sported a Kindle and now happily shows off his iPad, which he enjoys as a “consumer of the news flow.” He complains that The New York Times’ “Editors’ Choice” app doesn’t have a big enough selection of stories.

“I was a real Kindle freak,” he said. “The Kindle is very unidimensional: There’s no backlight; it’s just black print. But I can get on a plane in L.A. and have the Richmond Times-Dispatch.”

Emphasizing “limited government” as a muscular, nonthreatening message to broaden the party’s appeal, he says Obama is taking the country “a 100 miles an hour ... toward a much larger government and an entitlement type of society.”

“I want people to think of Republicans as a party that gets it, that we are smart and understand the diversity of this country, and we understand that America is based on an opportunity mind-set,” he said. “It is not about government paying for everything and dealing folks their lot in life.”

In the Detroit speech, Cantor recalls “explaining to President Obama and his economic brain trust what deli owners, shopkeepers and service providers in Richmond were telling me they needed to stay alive and grow.”

“And as the meeting continued, I could tell the president’s team wasn’t on the same page, even though these were some of the smartest people in the country,” he says. “Their hearts just weren’t in the private sector.”

During the interview, Cantor criticized Obama for his attacks on BP for the Gulf disaster. “It does not help to sit here and bash,” he said. “You don’t see the American people rising up in unanimity with this president now [or] vilifying anybody. It is so in contrast with how he was elected.”

Looking ahead to a possible Republican House, Cantor relished “the leverage that comes with that gavel.”

“The White House won’t get what they want unless they do work with us,” he said. “It’s not just about a government that works. I mean, hell, you can say communism worked, if it was providing food to people and transportation. If we do our job in communicating to the electorate what’s going on, we’ll have a motivated [House Republican] Conference to stand up and stop a lot of the bad things that have happened and insist on trying to go in and start correcting some of the really bad policy.”

Readers' Comments (270)

I'd like to take Eric Cantor's anti-spending focus seriously, but looking back at the Bush administration & the GOP Congress that went along happily, right up until Bush became a political liability, tells me I simply can't take anything they say seriously any more.

“The White House won’t get what they want unless they do work with us,” he boasted

If a Democrat had said this, Eric Cantor would be blasting them from all angles for "excessive partisanship."

In fact, when Democrats tried to say stuff like this during the Bush years, they were openly accused of obstructionism -- which is almost certainly what they were guilty of, but that's another story. However, since they were arguably guilty of obstructionism for doing precisely what Cantor is saying above .... what's that say about the current minority GOP?

More importantly, how seriously can I take Cantor, when he makes a statement like that? Not very. To me, he's just another partisan political hypocrite. I wish all political parties & their partisans would disappear entirely; maybe then we can get this country back on its feet.

I want to refocus the American voters on all the wasteful spending the “conservative” Republicans engaged in while they were in power most recently, and how they’ve done it every single time they’ve held power.

"Yea, America, don't blame us Democrats for all that wasteful spending .... after all, we're just doing what Bush got away with for 8 years, only with a kinder, gentler face!"

I’d also like to refocus attention on the fact that despite signing Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, “conservative” Republican Eric Cantor voted FOR the largest tax rate increase in the history of the nation.all

First, Rep. Cantor needs to take some time to learn what responsible leadership is.

Rep. Cantor's party, with him in it, certainly did not provide anything like responsible leadership during the long years of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. In fact, all those folks did effectively was cut taxes for the wealthy, deregulate and SPEND, SPEND, SPEND. Perhaps we should call the GOP the "cut taxes and spend our way into the red" party.

Actions do speak louder than words Rep. Cantor. It will take a long while to forget that the House Republican Bill to reform Wall Street prepared JUST LAST YEAR was reform absolutely NOTHING.

IIRC, those big AIG bonuses were only possible because of taxpayer-funded bailouts of an arguably criminal corporate board. In a context like that, taxing their bonuses is not quite the same as raising taxes on millions of American workers.

Frankly, I hate large tax increases, but I see nothing wrong with skinning AIG executives until every last penny they've been given has been returned. IMO, they're lucky they got bailouts, instead of prison stripes.